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Storm’s Cost May Reach $1 Billion, Cuomo Says

Michael Appleton for The New York TimesGov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday comforts Emily Morse and her husband, Richard, whose house was badly damaged by flooding caused by Tropical Storm Irene in Prattsville, N.Y.

PRATTSVILLE, N.Y. — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Wednesday that he expected damage in the state from Tropical Storm Irene to reach “close to $1 billion,” though he assured residents that there would be sufficient state and federal financial assistance for the recovery effort.

“We are not just going to rebuild, we are going to rebuild back better than ever before,” he said. He predicted that power would be restored to at least 80 percent of the state’s customers by the end of the day, up from 78 percent early Wednesday afternoon.

Mr. Cuomo made his remarks during a brief visit to this town in the Catskill Mountains, a region ravaged by flooding over the weekend. He was accompanied by a large delegation of state and federal officials, including Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, who was also scheduled to visit New Jersey later in the day.

At a news conference, the governor presented a stark scorecard of the storm’s damage throughout the state: more than 600 homes destroyed, 6 towns inundated, 150 major highways damaged and 22 state bridges closed and more than $45 million in destruction to the agricultural sector.

But he pointed out that the storm took a disproportionate toll on the Catskills region. While densely populated downstate areas like New York City and Long Island “celebrated” the fact that the storm’s damage in their region was not as bad as anticipated, he said, upstate towns suffered “an exactly opposite reality.”

Ms. Napolitano, whose department oversees federal emergency response efforts, promised that officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency would remain until the community was back on its feet.

“Even though some of us will be leaving and going to other states that have been hurt by Irene, FEMA will not be going,” she said. “We will remain here, there will be a presence here, we will be helping you with this recovery and bringing this community back to where it was before.”

But she counseled patience. “It will take some time,” she said.

According to Mr. Cuomo, Prattsville, in western Greene County, was the town hit hardest by the storm.

It sits at the confluence of three mountain streams, which swelled to several times their normal size, overflowing their banks and flooding scores of homes and businesses.

Mr. Cuomo, Ms. Napolitano and other officials arrived by helicopters around noon, landing two miles outside Prattsville, then were driven into town in a convoy of sport utility vehicles. They got out on the town’s mud-caked main street and strolled along a receiving line of rescue workers and local officials, shaking hands and chatting.

“Good to see you,” the governor told a fire official. “Stay strong.”

“We got to do some work here, huh?” Ms. Napolitano said to the town’s supervisor, Kory O’Hara.

Mr. Cuomo was also introduced to a couple, Emily and Richard Morse, whose house on the town’s main road was seriously damaged by flooding.

“Everything can be fixed,” Mr. Cuomo responded, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

For two days after the storm, the residents of Prattsville, aided by others from surrounding towns and elsewhere in the county, were largely alone in trying to dig themselves out of the muck and debris left by the receding waters. But beginning Tuesday night, in anticipation of the dignitaries’ arrival, the town’s population underwent a striking transformation.

By Wednesday morning, a FEMA communications trailer had parked near a Greene County Emergency Services trailer that had been parked in a lot next to the town’s grocery store since Monday, serving as a de facto town hall and meeting place for residents and local officials.

Michael O’Hara, 61, whose family has called Prattsville home for six generations, said he watched Wednesday’s spectacle from his home.

“I was sitting on the porch watching all the choppers coming in,” Mr. O’Hara said. “I guess it’s not a parade, but it looked like one. But it showed interest on the government’s part. Makes you think they might do something.”

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